


Into the Unknown

by MelodyoftheVoid



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: AU: zim never came to Earth, Depressed Dib, Gen, Just to be sure, Nathan is a pure boi, Oblivious Professor Membrane, Older Dib (Invader Zim), Questionable parent Professor Membrane, References to Depression, he's doing his best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:02:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22996627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelodyoftheVoid/pseuds/MelodyoftheVoid
Summary: Temptation is a powerful thing.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 37





	Into the Unknown

_The wind rushed past Dib’s ears as his breathing became heavier, trench coat fluttering behind him. He’d been on the hunt for the home of this creature for the last week and now he’d finally made it. As he came to a stop in the clearing, the moonlight shone full through the branches of the forest, creating twisted phantasms dimmed occasionally by clouds. Dib’s vision picked up a light in the distance, and as his head turned his jaw dropped._

_Will O’ Wisps, possibly hundreds of them, poured out of the trees, floating and drifting in the breeze. He’d never seen so many of them before; he doubted anyone had. Just before he could reach his camera a shrill shriek emitted from just behind him. That was it! As the noise grew louder, and louder, Dib could just barely make out the shape through the foliage. He crept forward, it looked like, like…_

Like his alarm clock. 

Bleary eyes blinked slow as the dream faded away, replaced by the cold reality of his apartment. Sitting up, part of Dib wanted desperately to go back to bed and back to that dream. But his Dad valued punctuality and he certainly did not feel like receiving a lecture today. He’d gotten his fill of those growing up. 

Going about his daily routine, the same he’d followed to a T for the last decade, he tried to ignore the lingering traces of longing. This was the third time this week he dreamt of the paranormal, of returning to his childhood passion and throwing his current life away, and it was driving him up the wall. 

He could pinpoint the exact moment when this all started, back in the only place that gave him a modicum of life anymore: the observatory. He’d taken to spending his weekends there gazing up at the stars, yearning for something. But he dozed off one night, and as a result of his chronic lack of self-care he’d knocked some of the instruments out of alignment. 

Before the panic at possibly breaking the top of the line equipment set in, he heard it. A voice, clear as day coming from the radioscope. He somehow managed to pull out his phone to record the message through the haze of shock. The voice coming through the speakers was unlike any he’d ever heard, entrancing him. It spoke of needing help, of a war against an empire, the speaker identified themselves as “Zim” and nothing more.

Just as soon as the strange message had come, it was gone, leaving Dib alone in stunned silence. What was that? Had he just hallucinated? He double checked the dials, and they were trained in on deep space. And everything else was in working order. By that logic, what he’d heard was from… 

No. That wasn’t scientifically possible. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be.

That message haunted his every waking moment, he’d replayed it in the hope of finding the clip from some old movie, or any other Earth media. Nothing matched up with the voice he’d heard that night. He wasn’t even free when he slept; dreams of returning to his old ways pulled at the more logical parts of his mind. The feeling of perusing something in the dead of night, the adrenaline rush, being just on the precipice of the world people understood. 

Dib shook his head, cursing himself for getting lost in that useless fantasy again. This was reality, and it had no room for fantasies of aliens and heroism. He put that nonsense behind him. It was for the best. Another look at the clock told him he had enough time to at least get some breakfast before ~~subjecting himself to~~ another day of Real Science. 

He opened his closet to the sea of lab coats that made up his wardrobe now, pointedly ignoring the black coat that he couldn’t bring himself to throw away. He lingered for just a moment longer before turning around. 

Once he made it to the lab, he took a moment to stare at its walls. This was where he’d built his life, where he’d reinvented himself. He had the trust and love of his father now, he and Gaz had managed to patch together their relationship, and people genuinely respected and listened to him! He was the genius who single-handedly solved the rare mineral shortage by creating a fleet of remote asteroid miners, ushering in a new age of advanced technology after all.

Dib continued his routine, checking in at the front, greeting the interns, making small talk with the scientists that wanted him to give a good word to his father about their work, etc. 

“Sir!”

A brief shout was all the warning Dib got before someone collided with him at full speed, papers scattering like leaves in the wind. Dib managed to stay standing, but his assailant was slightly less fortunate. The young man collapsed on the ground was now frantically attempting to put his folder back into working order while spewing apologies like a dying man.

Dib had seen this particular intern a handful of times in the observatory, Nathan if he remembered correctly. Dib knelt to help him before he drove himself to a heart attack. 

“Oh god I am so, so sorry! I just thought you needed to see these papers and it was urgent, so I ran to your office and you weren’t there so I panicked and ran out here to find you-“

“Breathe, it’s fine. What did you need me to see, Nathan?”

Nathan gaped for a solid moment at the fact he remembered his name much to Dib’s chagrin. He always felt uncomfortable when the interns looked at him like that. Hero worship was not as nice as his tween self hoped it would be.

“Yes of course! A few months ago, some of the instruments got a bit out of whack and ever since, we’ve gotten these readings! It’s like some kind of code!”

“What do you mean?” Dib tried to keep his expression as neutral while the message played in the back of his mind.

“The numbers repeat! I’ve tried to get the heads of the other departments to look into it but none of them will listen!” Nathan huffed before his expression lit up, “But I know that this could be groundbreaking if we get to the bottom of this. If it isn’t too much to ask, could you at least take a look?”

The now reassembled folder was gingerly handed to him. 

Dib held it with trepidation, eyes furrowed. He shouldn’t encourage this; he didn’t want Nathan to go down the same path of desperation and disappointment that he did. Yet, a small voice that sounded suspiciously like his old video logs whispered that this could be it. 

This was a mistake.

“I’ll see what I can do.” 

The light in Nathan’s eyes dimmed slightly. Shit. He didn’t know how to handle this.

“Thank you for bringing this to me Nathan, this could be big.”

Nailed it.  
Bidding Nathan a hasty farewell, Dib holed himself up in his office, glaring yet another distraction. Why wouldn’t this just go away? He just wanted to go about his day and not think about that stupid message for 10 minutes. Was this just the universe’s way of taunting him? Dangling the very thing he searched for fruitlessly in front of him now that he felt content with his life? 

Well, one look couldn’t hurt. And maybe it was all just one big coincidence and he could just pretend that everything was fine. 

Eight hours later Dib decided that everything was definitely not fine. 

What Nathan told him was true, the numbers that repeated when run through a literal labyrinth of cyphers revealed coded messages. It seemed like the war he heard about was real; Dib reached for his 20th cup of coffee with shaking hands. A knock on his door loosened his tenuous grasp, spilling coffee on his disaster zone of a desk. Dib managed to give a quick “come in” before diving to save his notes. 

A sheepish Nathan stood in the doorway, hands wringing in a manner painfully familiar to Dib. 

“Sorry for the interruption sir, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Confident that he’d managed to mitigate the worst of the damage, Dib leaned back in his chair, wincing at the cracks and pops that resulted.

“It’s fine. It was bound to happen eventually.”

“Still…”

“Relax Nathan, now, was there something else you wanted to talk about?” 

“Ah, yes! Did you, uh, manage to find time to look at my notes?”

The intern’s voice cracked a bit towards the end as Dib collected his cluttered thoughts. 

“You were absolutely right,” Dib gathered some of the more coherent notes, “look here, this one has an opening and closer, just like an email.” Dib’s movements accelerated as he pulled up more and more messages. “A craft the size of Mercury, capable of housing trillions, seems to be the flagship of this so-called Empire, they’re fighting a war out there, and this group, this ‘Resisty’, wants to take it out!” 

Dib blinked before coughing into his hand, sinking back down to his desk. He hadn’t even realized he was standing up, too caught up in the addictive excitement that bordered on obsession to notice. 

“Of course, that’s just what I think the numbers translate to. I suppose anything could come out into words if you run it through enough cyphers. Monkeys and typewriters as they say.”

“Do you really think that?”

A memory, somewhat faded by time, sprang to mind. He was young, maybe 8 at the oldest, and he finally managed to get a picture of Bigfoot. It’d taken months of setting traps and rigging cameras, but he’d done it! He ran to his dad’s lab, elated, only to be met with complete and total apathy. 

_“Oh son, that must be an escaped gorilla! Bigfoot isn’t real.”_

_“Are you sure Dad?”_

_“Yes son, now why don’t you help me with this experiment. I’m on the verge of creating super toast!”_

That was the first nail in the coffin of his paranormal dreams. His dad was the world’s top scientist, he’d know what was out there, what was real. Even if his gut told him to look closer, to fight harder, the look of glee on his father’s face when he started to pursue science made it easy to ignore. At least it did at first.

“No. I- I don’t.”

“Then why-?”

“BECAUSE I’M SCARED!” Dib tried to compose himself, god here he was having a mental break in front of an intern who only wanted to try and prove his worth to his idol. What a month he was having.

“I just, god, I have so much here, but I want to go. I want to see what’s out there, I want to meet whoever is sending these messages. I can’t just leave though, I have responsibilities, it’d just be selfish.”

“How?”

“What?”

“If you went out there, wouldn’t that be incredible? You could bring back so much technology if they’re out there! And if there’s anyone on Earth to represent us, I’d choose you in a heartbeat!”

“Really?”

A wide manic grin, the likes of which hadn’t been seen for almost a decade, spread across Dib’s face.

“Thanks, I think I needed to hear that.”

The next months passed in a feverish blur. Dib hadn’t felt this energized in years and he’d be damned if he let this opportunity slip away from him. His father never even questioned what he was doing with all that machinery, or why he refused to let anyone come near the warehouse. The professor had his own eccentricities after all. Dib pulled as many all-nighters as he could, welding together his chance of freedom, listening in on the elusive channel that provided him the answers he craved. 

Stories of epic battles for planets lightyears away, an oppressive empire that pissed one too many worlds off, a defective who took a stand against his entire species to do the right thing. Dib laughed a little when he heard that last one. Of course he’d find his one kindred spirit among the stars and not on Earth. 

Just before the final touches went on, Dib felt the need to say goodbye. He owed his family that much at least. 

Telling Gaz yielded one opened eye and what could charitably be called a smile. 

“Go find your alien soulmate dweeb. Took you long enough honestly.”

That was probably the most supportive thing she’d ever said to him. She even let Dib give her a hug for .5 seconds before threatening to use his intestines to strangle him if he didn’t get off of her. 

This was going to be the hard part, Dib pushed open the door to his father’s office, notes and schematics in hand. 

“Dad? Can we talk?”

“Of course, son! Made another groundbreaking discovery?”

The look of genuine pride on his dad’s face was diminishing Dib’s already low expectations for this meeting. 

“Well, yes. But I need you to keep an open mind. You know that project I’ve been working on?”

“It’s the talk of the labs! How could I not know?”

Oh boy.

“It’s a, uh, spaceship. A few months ago, I started getting messages from deep space. And before you tell me that that’s not scientifically possible, I double checked the source. I triple checked all media to find a match for any of the phrases, just take a look. I’m planning on leaving in a week and I…” Dib couldn’t bring himself to finish. The words that he kept repeating prior dying on his tongue.

He braced himself for the inevitable. Any hopes of this ending well for him in any way plummeting to their death. 

“Son,” here it comes, “go ahead.”

What?

“What?”

“While I may not approve of this whole ‘aliens’ angle, I trust that this space exploration will be productive! Space is the final frontier after all!”

Dib couldn’t hold back the tears now, he lunged forward to hug the somewhat startled professor. 

“Thank you, dad.”

“Of course, son.”

Dib wiped his brow at the final twist of his wrench. That was the last check he needed before take-off. He pressed the ignition key with no hesitation. This was it, no turning back now. With a lurch, the ship hovered above the landing pad, ready for Dib’s next command. 

“Alright ‘Zim’, let’s see what you’ve got for me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this piece](https://jam-2x.tumblr.com/post/190073394537), and the Panic! cover of "Into the Unknown". I love that my brain is never satisfied with working on 1 project at a time and insists on heaping more ideas on top of me. God help me...


End file.
